My hideout place in this funny world...

Maybe-not-really-20-something-anymore from Norway who likes to scrapbook and take photos documentarystyle and dreams of photojournalism when not working as a photojournalist and that's pretty much what this blog is about. And I like it this way.

Apart from the bats, none of the things used on this box really is Halloween-specific. All you need is to use stuff with the typical Halloween-colors all in one sorta.

The bats were pulled from a bat-vine from Prima, the vine with the pumpkin as well. The glitter cardstock is from Core’dinations, and the papers are from the printery-collection, with some flowers and flocked rubons and mirrorthingies mixed in.

The box reveals a little hat which immediately made me think of a friend of mine…

Pretty leaves..

Right!

Just wanted to share this last Halloween-thingie before the actual Halloween :)

Got a pack of Halloween-papers from Authentique, and together with an empty box of perfume, wooden sticks & some Glue Arts adhesive it actually turned into something pretty cool (if I may say so myself).

Right. Spent this weekend in Stavanger, although..didn’t get to see too much of the city, but hey, I got to whip out the camera for this:

What that is? Well, the kids trying to catch the candy in their mouth..by running straight against the candy with their eyes wide…shut?? (they’re not too bright, these kids of mine, uh? :p)…the candy is tied to an air balloon… oh, the fun you can do in a hotel-room! *grin* (yeah some of my scrappy friends might recognize this kinda hotel-room too..:p)

Sure, it’s not something we really celebrate here in Norway, not in the American sense of the phenomenon or whatever you’d call it (but there’s a tradition to visit your beloved in the graveyard and light a candle for them, at least among the eldery)…but…well, I’m pretty easily influenced and stuff soo…

Here’s a mini I created long time ago (but actually never shared…I think…hoped to have it pubbed but it wasn’t picked up then I forgot all about it :p) using Pink Paislee’s Hocus Pocus-collection with quite a bit of Hambly screenprints mixed in.

The mini used was, hmm… I’m not quite sure w/o looking at the specific supplylistpaper, which I’m too lazy to do atm, might have been Poppydesign? It’s a 6x6 with rounded corners, quite generic actually, so might have been one of many brands nevertheless :p

It’s a challenge open for everybody – no matter what country you reside in (Craft Origine is a French scrapbookstore and stamp manufacturer). Here’s the info:

Craft Origine present you the Challenge #1!To participate, you must do a creation with the color combo above. You can use the supplies and materials you want. The page of the winner will be posted on our blog and the winner will receive a set of stamps Craft Origine ! The pages of the other participants will also be published. The challenge begins October 21 and ends November 6 at midnight. Participants from all countries are welcome! Please send your creations by email to: infos@craftorigine.com. Indicate in the subject line: CRAFT ORIGINE CHALLENGE #1 Good luck !

Such a cute colorcombo, and I promise you: their stamps are really sophisticated & excellent to use. Must find time for this one myself! :D

Spent last week in Paris – this time with the kids & hubby. Wonderful city, wonderful vacation, wonderful week – but now I’m pretty exhausted & need a vacation from the vacation.

For this trip I just brought the iPhone (and hipstamatic) and the X100 along.

If you’re travelling without kids, I’d suggest using the rental bikes. There’s bike/parking stations pretty much everywhere in the city, rental’s dirt cheap and you get to see a whole lot more of the city without getting sore feet too fast. Oh, and it’s fun to boot. I’d also recommend following someone with a directional clue if you do so (I don’t, so I’m glad I had someone to follow last year).

As we had the kids with us, we pretty much just used the metro all the time. This one got pretty good at reading the metro-maps and kept reporting on how many more stations that remained. We purchased a 5-day Paris Visite ticket for everybody.

One of the nicest aspects with booking an apartmenthotel is that you have the possibility of buying your own breakfast. Loved that there’s bakeries, butcheries, small restaurants and grocerystores like, everywhere in the city.

When travelling with kids, small games etc for the restaurants is a must! Thanks Banglamarie for this lifesaving trick. (Although – when you purchase new games – make sure the games actually contains *everything* needed – mine missed a special dice – and I heard from others that it’s not uncommon missing parts with this particular game (BOO, Egmont!)

Visiting the Eiffel Tower was a must. It was a big hit with the kids. Ps. Take the stairs. Only like 680 steps or something like that.

This was the view of the queue for the lifts from the 1st floor. It’s not the whole queue..and it was like, at least 4 if not 5x larger than the queue for the stairs, which took us 20 min top before entering the tower.

And naturally. When travelling with kids, the playgrounds are a sure winner. At least with kids like ours. Let’em run & spend some energy while you rest your feet. (This one was right outside Louvre, in the park behind it. Or in front. Whatever. There’s a nice one in the Jardin du Luxembourg one aswell)

Be sure to pay the 6 million Parisians a visit aswell – in the Catacombs of Paris. And yes, Amalie thought it was just dandy. After like 5minutes of holding her hands in front of the eyes she grew tired of it and thought all the skulls wasn’t that bad after all – and purchased a skull eraser afterwards which she played a lot with during the vacation.

Meet up with friends who’s in the same city as you (and try to get their kids to adopt yours) *wave Eli*

Pompidou is so well worth the visit. Well, without the kids. Sure, they did find a number of the installations interesting, but 70 percent of the time was spent trying to keep an eye on them and reassuring them we’d leave soon. Ps. Right now they have an exhibition of Edvard Munch (the Norwegian painter). Haven’t been to the Munch gallery since I was a kid, so it was pretty pleasant seeing the paintings and works and reading all the information about him at this exhibition. Plus, I love the timber-paintings of his (great trick of the eye).

Walk along the Seine and see Photoquai. We decided to reach Louvre from the Eiffel Tower on feet, and just found this. Fascinating exhibition, although again, the kids made it a bit difficult to give the exhibition the full attention I would have liked to give it. Sniff. After 20 minutes their patience ran thin, so we hurried along the way…

..and found these wooden installations & playthings. Stayed for another 30 minutes so that the balance was restored (happy kids = happy parents).

For Versailles we had learned the trick on how to make the youngest stay happy & patient. Just give her the camera & the responsibility of snapping photos. Sure, you get a lot (and I mean a LOT) of blurry and funny composed photos, but hey, that’s the price you pay for a pretty much undisturbed tour…

Don’t forget the happiest place on Earth…tip: Book your trip to this place on a weekday if you can. BIG BIG difference between the queues at Friday and Saturday. Don’t dare imagine how it is in the summer…

Fun fact: Even the hotel we lived at smelled of candy and bubblegum (ok, only at the reception area, but still). True story. You could smell it once you got outta the bus. Must be fun to work there (or maybe not :p). Oh, not to forget the happyhappy Disneyish backgroundmusic in the breakfast-room. All.The.Time. Again. Must be fun to work there.

Got the coolest sweaters.

Saw all the princesses.

And had dinner at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show (NB: sound on the site..hate that). Expensive, so-so food but had an entertainment show which the kids loved and will remember for a very long, long time. Probably. Hopefully. They better :p

Right. I’d recommend checking out Spotted by Locals, Paris, before you go. Ofcourse I didn’t, but managed to check out this restaurant the last day in the city (was like 10 min away by feet from our hotel) and wish I had read the guide more thorough before going.

Remember the news about a new and improved Glue Glider Pro Cartridge? The handle is the same, but the cartridges carrying the adhesive has gotten even better!I pointed you to a giveaway on the Glue Arts blog the other day, and well – if you didn’t win anything there – don’t worry – you now have a new chance here on this blog :)

So if there's anyone out there wanting to try your luck and get a chance to win one of the NEW cartridges AND a handle – well – feel free to drop a comment here on this post…I’ll leave this giveaway open for a week, til tuesday October 18th.

Ps – yes, it's the cartridges which's new – but it'll work with the old handle no problem..so don't worry if you have an old handle at home, you don't have to purchase a new one :)

Best of luck!

Ps2.
Hate posting without scrappy images. Here’s a layout I did a few months ago and keep forgetting to post about...

Don’t you just love kids and what they say? My daughter is so convinced she’s gonna marry her brother when she grows up…bwahaha…such a cutiepie.. =)I have so many quotes saved both on the pc and the iphone which I really oughta scrap soon..sigh!
Enjoy your week!